I may have misused the phrase "culture war". You seem to see it as meaning "war on immigrants", "war on the visibly different", "religious oppression", or something of that sort. I'm talking about conflicting views of religious culture, and how far you're entitled to impinge on other people's freedom. Publishing a comic book (which contains no racism, no insults) creates zero victims. If it should inspire pogroms, as you seem to fear, I will be very surprised indeed, and will undoubtedly change my views.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

That would be the first time that the number of anti-Muslim incidents didn't shoot up during such campaigns. Are you sure you looked for reports, and not only in media that wouldn't report anti-Muslim violence anyway?

I couldn't know that reading the table of contents and going to the relevant page is too difficult a statistical task for you. I see. The diagramme on page 13 and the paragraph of text under it show the nexus between Islamophobian propaganda campaigns and attacks on Muslim individuals and institutions. You are probably able to find page 13, aren't you?

The trimester March to May 2011 saw more than 100 acts (40% of the total). These "over-­‐ active" periods of islamophobia tend to follow periods when islamophobic themes have been particularly present in public debate and in the national media. Notably, the National Education Minister, Luc Chatel, gave a speech on the 2nd March 2011 validating the acts of a Mrs. Palacio, the Headteacher of Joséphine Baker school who refused to allow veiled mothers to accompany their children on school trips. We also note the "debate on Islam and secularism" launched by the UMP in April. Further, on 11 April 2011 the law of 11 October 2010 forbidding the covering of the face in public came into effect, commonly known as the law against the burqa. There were also certains slip-­‐ups made by the Interior Minister, Claude Guéant, in April 2011 - he spoke on LCI TV about "the growing number of practising Muslims", with "a certain number of behaviours which pose a problem". The "Quick Halal" affair also contributed to the reinforcement of this islamophobic dynamic.

When you talk about "such campaigns", I assumed naïvely that it was on the topic of our discussion, i.e. publications concerning Mohamed in Charlie Hebdo. I see now that you somehow thought I was defending the islamophobic provocations of Sarkozy's government. That must have been very distressing to you, but I really don't see how you got that idea.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

Indeed. Since your very first intervention in this thread was a spurious attempt to assimilate Charlie Hebdo with right-wing Islamophobic hate sites, it's hardly surprising that, at the other end of the thread, you are doing your faux-naïve routine again, equating Charlie Hebdo with a right-wing islamophobic government.

It's disappointing though.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

"A worshipped secularism
The idea of "secularism" - a word which is being gradually corrupted - is changing in the collective imagination into a "sacred value", an immutable dogma around which is being built a dialogue of worship. Secularism is perfect, beautiful, the founder of French identity, a universal value - it is not to be touched. And yet, it was in order to "perfect", "reaffirm" and "reinforce" secularism that anti-­‐Islamic laws were passed in 2004 and 2010, and why in 2012 there is a proposal to review the Constitution in order to modify its definition of secularism. Rather than being a value which allows all religions to be expressed and to coexist side by side, secularism has conditioned "coexistence" to signify the censoring of any religious expression. There is now an ever-growing divergence between historical secularism which was open and inclusive, and today's political secularism, which is closed and exclusive."